Ethical & moral standards for the 21st century #3

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

After the last episode of my exciting new thread series it became clear that half of you all are a bunch of perverts that want to remove/relax the age restrictions for buying porn (or just wanted to click on a Vote button.) I love it that way. So, here's a new episode which deals with the concept of marriage.

 

This episode is partly inspired by Sen. Santorum and his comments about how removing sodomy laws is a slippery slope leading to other "bad things".

 

So, now let's get to the main points of this episode. Why not relax the rules for marriage? Some states already allow gay unions so the only way I see how we can relax the rules for marriage a little more is to allow polygamy. I'm not only talking about the standard mormon (IIRC) "One guy, several women" kind of polygamy but also about "One woman, several guys" or "Several guys, several women".

I fear however that such a relaxation of the marriage rules would cause trouble that easily dwarfs Pandora's box. One has to ask here why the concept of marriage exists and what effects it has on society.

 

I think the latter of these two questions is easier to answer, therefore I will try to cover it first. In most Western countries marriaged is specially protected and married couples receive direct or indirect government funding and some special rights, for example the right to adopt children, inheritance stuff or assumed power of attorney.

Now we have a problem. Let's assume we have three guys and five girls that love each other or at least claim to do so. They want to marry and as a consequence of that they want to have tax breaks. That's fine but that opens the gates for fraud like nothing else since the boom of interweb stocks. What's to stop dozens if not hundreds of people to marry each other? Nothing. The only way to solve this is to stop governmental funding of marriages.

Without really aiming for it we have just reached the 1st question I asked above (why does marriage exist?). It's an ancient concept that stems from times when sexuality was frowned upon and giving birth to children when you weren't married basically destroyed your whole life. In the Western hemisphere these problems can probably be traced back to the major Christian churches. Marriage solved this problem as sex between married partners was not frowned upon and "multiplying" then was even considered to be a positive thing. This concept survived until this very day albeit in slightly altered form: Modern governments support marriages to make sure enough children are born to keep the country goin. That's just another wording of the original religious reason, in an unreligious world there is no reason to distinguish between children born in wedlock and children born out of wedlock. Subsequently there is no reason to claim that marriages increase the "baby output" of modern societies for ethical reasons.

There is however a real (financial) reason why marriage might increase the "baby output": The security and trust you gain when you live together with a partner and consider all income and goods to be property of both partners. And although this security has been weakened significantly with the liberalization of divorce laws I believe it's still an important factor for anybody who really thinks about raising kids and realizes that this is not exactly a simple task. However there is no reason why this shouldn't be the case with any kind of polygamial marriage. Just take the standard laws and agreements that already exist for "normal" marriages and keep them.

 

In my book this is the biggest reason why polygamy will never be widespread even if it's completely legal. Let's assume you're a pretty rich person and a bunch of your friends propose to you. If they aren't as wealthy as you are you are essentially dividing your income among them. And quite frankly, who's that stupid? If you give a part of your income to a single partner you can easily bring up the love to compensate for it. But what if you have 4 or 5 partners and they are significantly worse off than you are? In that case you'd really have to be a love machine to compensate for the "lost" money.

 

So, the monetary reasons are out of the way. Now for the shortly mentioned "special rights". All I can think of now can be applied to marriages that include several partners. Here are three special rights which should serve as examples.

 

- Inheritance: In most Western countries ones partner can claim at least a part of the inheritance in case he dies. There is no reason why this shouldn't work with multiple partners. If you want to spread your wealth among many people so be it. The arguments here are equal to the arguments presented above.

- Power of attorney: There's no reason why this shouldn't exist in multi-partner marriages. If you can't trust your partners enough you shouldn't marry them, if they screw you anyway it's your own fault. Kinda like it's already with standard marriages. This is another point why marriages involving a multitude of people will never become mainstream. You either have to find a bunch of trustworthy people or you have to be a naive idiot.

- Adoption: This is tricky and I believe it's a thread on it's own. Should only married couples be allowed to adopt? Should unmarried heterosexual partners be allowed to adopt? Should singles be allowed to adopt? What about homosexuals? Just in case your answer to all of these is "Hell yes" there's ethical no reason to deny the right to adopt to multi-partner marriages. There is however still a major problem: Can a kid be raised correctly if he has lots of people telling him what to do? Especially if these people tell the child very contradictory things.

 

THE OTHER OPTION: Some people think marriage shouldn't be dictated nor controlled nor established by any state institution. They say it has nothing to do with the government. I agree. I have no idea why we still have to pay the courts or the church in this modern time for the right to wed the person you allegedly love. It should be simple, if you live with someone and claim them ever in any legal capacity as your spouse, such claim should be recognized legally. When you desire a divorce, the only reason you need to work a civil case would be to settle disputes and to divest one another of financial liability for each other's actions. And if we had a common sense fiscal law policy we wouldn't even need the second.

 

Your opinion?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

we have just reached the 1st question I asked above (why does marriage exist?). It's an ancient concept that stems from times when sexuality was frowned upon and giving birth to children when you weren't married basically destroyed your whole life. In the Western hemisphere these problems can probably be traced back to the major Christian churches. Marriage solved this problem as sex between married partners was not frowned upon and "multiplying" then was even considered to be a positive thing.

I like your new thread series, but this bit concerning the origin of marriage is completely wrong. The institution of marriage and its (usually) implicit exclusivity is a result of basic biology, and its codification a result of its subsequent political and economic use. Even early religions incorporated marriage as a matter of course, not because sex was "frowned upon" - hardly - but because any belief system's proselytisers would want authority over a ceremony so fundamental to any society. And as the various belief systems grew more structured and hierarchical, they imposed structure and hierarchy on marriage in order to bring it unquestionably under their power. Prejudice against bastards was invented by the churches; it didn't predate them and marriage wasn't institutionalised as a solution.

[Guest Plushy Al Logan]

Get the Government out of marriage! Privatize it!

 

Every Rose Has It's Thorn!

[Guest Some Guy]

I think if you're gonna talk about marriage reform then you you also cover divorce reform, IE fixing the most seixst, man hating system in the country.

 

I tend to agree with the privitizinf of marriage, but what abotu immigrants who gain citizenship through marriage, without a government authority over marriage this would be problematic. fuck my cable just went out. I think polygamy, polyandry, etc.. should be voted on, they'll lose and the issue will be closed. The problem with having multiple spouses is that they tend to have a lot of children. A lot of children tend to lead to welfare.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

I like your new thread series, but this bit concerning the origin of marriage is completely wrong. The institution of marriage and its (usually) implicit exclusivity is a result of basic biology, and its codification a result of its subsequent political and economic use. Even early religions incorporated marriage as a matter of course, not because sex was "frowned upon" - hardly - but because any belief system's proselytisers would want authority over a ceremony so fundamental to any society. And as the various belief systems grew more structured and hierarchical, they imposed structure and hierarchy on marriage in order to bring it unquestionably under their power. Prejudice against bastards was invented by the churches; it didn't predate them and marriage wasn't institutionalised as a solution.

That's most certainly right and I have to admit without the help of some reasearch and asking questions on other forums this part of my statement would've been even worse. I completely neglected other parts of the world at first but after talking to some peoples I added "Western hemisphere". Probably because that's where the problems I described do arise from the views of the major Christian churches. At least in my opinion.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

I think if you're gonna talk about marriage reform then you you also cover divorce reform, IE fixing the most seixst, man hating system in the country.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, but I'd privatize the whole kit and kaboodle and make these legal and financial obligations of a divorce explicit in a marriage contract.

[Guest Vyce]

I think if you're gonna talk about marriage reform then you you also cover divorce reform, IE fixing the most seixst, man hating system in the country.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, but I'd privatize the whole kit and kaboodle and make these legal and financial obligations of a divorce explicit in a marriage contract.

Divorces in this country are set up to screw over the man as much as humanly possible.

 

It's insane. Let's say I marry some woman. I'm the sole source of income. We divorce after a few years. I suddenly have to fork over to her half of everything that I own, even though I earned it.

 

It's economic rape. You wake up one morning and your wallet is bruised and bleeding.

 

That's why I think Mormons are all royally fucked up in the head. Why would you want to marry at all, let alone MULTIPLE PEOPLE?!?!?!?!

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Your soon to be ex-wife is a bitch then. If she is a) capable of self sufficience and b) working, then there should be no reason at all that she gets one red cent from you - unless you've been married over 10 years or whatever the cutoff of equal division of assets is where you are. For instance, my ex receives nothing from me. A friend of mine was married 3 years, she has a job, she is her own person and never even considered begging him for money in a divorce settlement, because she's not a leeching loser (she's an entirely different kind of loser). The way he sees it, sure, she doesn't make even half as much as he does, and she has - at best - 200 bucks a month for food/gas/fun/misc, but that's not his problem.

[Guest stardust]

As a side note, some states don't have alimony laws. Texas happens to be one of them, so in the case of a divorce, the ex husband isn't forced to pay alimony to his ex-wife. Child support is actually probably the big monetary issue here when it comes to divorces.

[Guest Some Guy]

In MA it depends on the stiaution. My mother's boyfriend's ex-wife hit him hard for alimony and no child support because the kids were almost 21 at the and she knew the child support would run out do she steals tons of money form him so she can live in the house he bought, drive teh car he paid for and provide room and board for whatever rebrobate she's shacked up with. Sounds fair to me, doesn't it to you?

[Guest DrTom]

All of these reasons are examples of why

Pagan handfasting > Marriage

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

In MA it depends on the stiaution.

Then, don't you agree that this should all be agreed and laid out beforehand in a marriage contract done privately instead of ruled by the government?

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

While I personally believe marriage is sacred (if you abide by the rules of marriage, "till death do you part," then it shows an extreme amount of dedication), I'm not going to force people to abide by what I think is right. Therefore, marriage SHOULD be privatized.

 

As for the divorce "hey, he worked his ass off to provide for me, now I'm taking half of it" clause that seems too apparent...it's bullshit. Unless it can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that my ex-wife is a definite reason for my monetary gain, then that bitch shouldn't get anything.

[Guest Some Guy]

In MA it depends on the stiaution.

Then, don't you agree that this should all be agreed and laid out beforehand in a marriage contract done privately instead of ruled by the government?

Sure, ask Donald Trump how well that worker out for him NY with Ivana. A lot of states selectivly enforce Pre Nups. I think Pre Nups are a great idea, however many women are steadfastly against them, it takes away from the ramantic idea of marriage and they can't fleece the guy if they break up.

 

What bothers me most about how the divorce system works is a situation like Jim Carrey's. he divorced his first wife before he got incredibly rich, right before or right after Ace Ventura came out and now she's taking him back to court 10 years later to sue him for millions for incredibly self indulgent reasons. And she might win. I can't remember exactly how much and for what reasons she wants all this but it's in Entertainment Weekly. And she's already getting tons of tax free money a month. It's totally unfair.

 

The whole system revolves around what's "fair" for the woman with little or no regard for what's fair for the man. The argument is that women give up career oppurtunityies, which may or may not be true and then become accustomed to teh lifestyle that teh husband has afforded her, so therefore the husband should suffer while the woman gets to continue living just as she has for the duration of the marriage. It's a bullshit, sexist, man hating system.

[Guest Some Guy]

While I personally believe marriage is sacred (if you abide by the rules of marriage, "till death do you part," then it shows an extreme amount of dedication), I'm not going to force people to abide by what I think is right. Therefore, marriage SHOULD be privatized.

 

As for the divorce "hey, he worked his ass off to provide for me, now I'm taking half of it" clause that seems too apparent...it's bullshit. Unless it can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that my ex-wife is a definite reason for my monetary gain, then that bitch shouldn't get anything.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that she shouldn't get anything, she needs to beable to eat and have a house but she shouldn't have his house. Ivana Trump never would have been able to live the lifestyle that Donald Trump gave her without him and therefore should be set back to where was before she married him.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

A good reason the system is slanted more towards women than men.....because for the longest, women weren't shit. They didn't get shit, they were completely shitted on.

 

For example: middle to high class women didn't work a 40 hour week (most women) pre 1975. So when a divorce happened, the man was the only bread winner and the wife was the house wife, her standard of living goes from something to jack shit. So, they give her money as a way of staying on her feet so she can get a job and make it on her own.

 

These days, the law is mostly the same. But there are a few bad apples that spoil the bunch and they make the whole thing seem so wrong. Affirmative Action is the same way. In most cases it is good. But in others, it is so horribly wrong by bad apples.

 

Child Support is a whole different issue. It is completely different than just alimony cases. If a man or women has the kids, the other one should pay child support AND alimony (only for a few months). It shouldn’t be the kid’s fault that the parents split so the kid becomes SOL. If both of them made it both should support it. The burden should not come on to the shoulders of one family member.

[Guest SupaTaft]

The only purpose behind a legal marraige is for the tax right-off.

 

If you want somebody, you should just be allowed to be with them. Why does anyone else need to restrict that?

 

-Taft